Old Wounds, New Growth - Chapter 28. 2

Translator: Deyonna

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His head was tilting, bobbing back and forth. This reminded me of when he had told me that when he was a child, in the winter mornings when he attended kindergarten, his mother would wake him up to dress himself. He would then secretly doze off in bed while waiting for his mother to prepare breakfast.

"The clothes were so thick and heavy, I was a little over 3 years old then, and once I put them on I couldn't even bend my hands. I'd just sit on the quilt, like a penguin," he said.

When his mother finished making breakfast and returned, she would reach under his armpits to lift him up into her arms, carrying him over to eat while gently coaxing her Xiaobao to wake up.

I placed the milk and bowl on the table, then sat down on the bedside, reaching across Li Chishu's armpits to embrace him.

He rested his head on my shoulder, as I patted his back gently, calling out, "Xiaobao...time to get up.

He murmured incoherently.

I leaned in closer, continuing to slowly pat his back, "What did Xiaobao say?"

Li Chishu leaned against me, half asleep, "...Mama."

The movements of my hands paused, and Li Chishu also became awake at that moment, his body stiffening slightly. He sighed in my embrace and slowly pulled away.

He rubbed his eyes, glancing out the window, and muttered to himself to cover up naturally. "Are we going to be late?"

"It's still early." I lowered my head and chuckled furtively. I helped him put on his clothes properly. "Get up, wash your face, eat breakfast, and then we'll head to school."

-

While Li Chishu went to the bathroom, I casually helped him fold the quilt and unintentionally lifted the pillow, discovering a notebook lying quietly underneath. The notebook didn't look any different from Li Chishu's other notebooks, and it seemed to be frequently used, but was very neat and clean, with only the edges badly curled.

At first, I thought it might be his important workbook for mistakes or a notebook for a specific subject. I intended to check which subject it was for so I could help him put it back in his bag. Li Chishu was always very organized; all of the test papers and notebooks for each subject were kept in a dedicated folder, which was then placed back in the backpack with the other subjects.

But as soon as I flipped through a few pages, I sensed something unusual about it.

This was not a notebook, this was his diary.

The notebook wasn't very thick, but judging from the beginning date of the records, it seemed that Li Chishu had been using it for four or five years.

The reason was simply that his diary entries were pitifully sparse—just a row for the date and weather, and a few words summarizing his entire day. A double-sided page was a condensed snapshot of his life for half a month: eating, studying, how much money he spent that day.

For me, these few random words weren't just part of his day, but also seeing him enduring alone for more than ten years in solitary.

It wasn't until a certain day two years ago that Shen Baoshan appeared in his diary. At that point, a single row of text occasionally turned into two or three rows, mostly Li Chishu recording his simple chance encounters with me, what I was wearing at the time, plus his brief guesses on my actions and whereabouts: Shen Baoshan might have gone to play basketball, Shen Baoshan might have gone to eat, Shen Baoshan seemed to have glanced in my direction, Shen Baoshan probably didn't recognize me.

His words were like bitter fruit without taste—even in this most private world of his, there was no hint of emotion, only a simple recording documenting his life exiled to darkness by silence and inferiority.

"Liar..." I flipped further back until finally reaching the day when we reunited after two lifetimes five months ago. The words below the date had suddenly doubled and my vision began to blur. "Li Chishu, you liar…"

During the years we lived together, I once asked him if he had a habit of writing in a diary. At that time, we were sitting at home watching a movie. In the film, the female lead suffered from a disease where she would lose her memory every day upon waking up. When she became older and had silver hair, her equally aged lover would come to her every day, holding a notebook and narrating their lifetime of love in a friend's voice.

After watching that movie, Li Chishu said to me, "If only I could have that disease too. I could forget everything, and you could just tell me your story so that every day's memory would only be about you. I think I would be much happier that way."

I said, "Okay, if you ever get sick in the future, I'll take a notebook and read it to you every morning."

I asked him, "Li Chishu, did you have the habit of writing a diary before?"

Li Chishu said, "No."

I asked, "Why not?"

"Nothing worth writing about."

Around that time, he had been complaining that the Alprazolam the hospital prescribed for him wasn't working - he would take a pill at midnight but still couldn't sleep until 3 am. Later they switched him to a stronger sleeping pill. When Li Chishu watched the movie and took half a pill, he gradually became drowsy as we were chatting. "I used to live the same way every day. If I were to write a diary, I would finish ten years’s worth of writing in one day. So if I write every day, that’s not called writing a diary, it would be called copying lines as punishment."

I was amused by his words, and Li Chishu leaned back into my embrace, closing his eyes.

I looked down at his pale face and suddenly thought out aloud, "If you could go back ten years, what would you do?"

Li Chishu was silent for a long time. I thought he had fallen asleep.

But his eyelashes fluttered again, and he said, "Go find the eighteen-year-old Li Chishu first. Tell him to go find Shen Baoshan now and assure him not to be afraid, Shen Baoshan is very approachable."

"And then?" I asked.

A long time passed.

"And then..." Li Chishu's words were almost like a murmur in his sleep. "I'd apologize to him. I'm sorry to the 18-year-old me… you have tried so hard to live on."

-

Just as Li Chishu came out of the bathroom, I had just put the diary back in its place. He sat down to have breakfast with me, and then suddenly looked up and studied me for a while.

"What is it?" I asked, looking confused.

He picked up a mouthful of noodles and put it back in the bowl. "Your eyes... why are they a bit red?"

I rubbed my eye corner at his words. "Still red? Just now a piece of eyelash fell in, it was so painful."

Li Chishu leaned closer. "Did you get it out? Is it still painful now?"

"Now that you mention it, I do feel it a bit." I pressed a couple of tissues to the corners of my eyes, took a deep breath, and urged him, "Hurry up and eat your noodles."

Even as we were getting into the elevator, Li Chishu kept peering at my eyes. I changed the subject and gestured at the floor indicator screen, "We have five seconds to get downstairs. If you're still sleepy, you can hug me and sleep for another three seconds."

"What about the two seconds left?" Li Chishu asked.

"The remaining two seconds are for you to kiss me."

I quickly bent down and kissed him, and as I pulled away from Li Chishu, the elevator doors opened.

I took his hand and led him out, saying, "You see, wasn't that just perfect timing?"

-

Time passed quickly in our third year of high school, and spring came soon as well. Li Chishu had always disliked the cold weather, and as he gradually decreased layer after layer of clothing, he visibly lightened up.

After the spring outing, the hundred-day pledge[1] followed. He and I printed out our photo in advance and placed it on the bedside—one with the three of us, including me, him, and Potato, one with just the two of us, and another candid one where I kissed him. Li Chishu stubbornly refused to let me print it out, so I had to temporarily shelve it on my phone.

[1]Is a Chinese phrase that translates to "hundred-day pledge/rall." It refers to the 100th day before the college entrance exams occur. It is a significant milestone for students preparing for the exams. During this period, students pledge to study diligently and work hard to achieve their academic goals.

The housekeeper auntie had started going out on the street every day or selecting the freshest seasonal flowers from the garden to put in vases around the house. I am waiting for the weather to gradually warm up, and I would ask her to help me plant some gardenia flowers in the garden this year.

On the day of graduation, Li Chishu came out of the examination room and waited for me outside the school building for ten minutes.

Under the scorching sun, in the blazing summer, I quickly ran to the school gate and grabbed a bunch of gardenia flowers that I had hidden behind the bicycle seat early in the morning. I ran against the crowd, weaving through the hustle and bustle, until I finally found Li Chishu standing under the shade of a tree.

I carried the crossbody bag that he liked and handed the flowers behind me in front of him. A few droplets of morning dew bounced from the petals onto his collar.

I said, "Li Chishu, summer is here, fall in love with Shen Baoshan."

Many years later, Li Chishu and I went on a vacation to New Zealand. On a fresh and cool rainy day, he sat by the floor-to-ceiling window reading a book. It was then that I brought up the words that had been kept in my heart for years. "Li Chishu?"

"En?" His eyes remained fixed on the book, only responding to me with a soft nasal sound.

I slowly turned to his side, facing the drizzling evening rain, and asked, "Have you ever written a diary?"

Li Chishu said, "I have. I have been writing."

After he finished speaking, he looked up and glanced at me for two seconds. "Do you want to see it?"

"You want me to see it?"

"Hmm..." Li Chishu pondered for a while. "My diary is quite boring. Are you sure you want to see it?"

I sat down next to his tatami mat and said, "Then tell me about it. Pick the interesting parts and tell me."

"Interesting parts?"

He closed the book and thought for a moment. "The most interesting part was during my senior year. One morning, I was standing next to the ping pong table, memorizing vocabulary words. Suddenly, you threw a basketball at my feet and said, 'Hello, Li Chishu.' I felt that it was the most interesting day of my life."

As he mentioned this, he looked at me. "Shen Baoshan, why did you suddenly come to me that day?"

Why? How can I tell Li Chishu about the ending where we loved each other for years but were forever separated by fate? How can I tell him that despite my repeated efforts, I still can only helplessly watch him weakly heading towards his downfall? 

"I just had a dream before class," I said. "I think it was your mother who sent me that dream."

Until the end of my life, I haven't been able to tell which of my two lifetimes is a dream. If everything today is a dream, it is a very good dream, and I don't want to wake up even until my death.

I would prefer to believe that the thirty-year-old me in my previous life was more like a dream. And it was Li Chishu's mother who was in heaven who sent it as a reminder. To enlighten me early on to find my lost mission. She couldn't let her Xiaobao suffer hardships, so she chose me to protect him in her place.

"Mother?" Li Chishu asked, "Did you dream of my mother?"

"No."

I looked into his eyes, and in his dark pupils was my reflection, the same reflection of me that had remained the same for ten years.

I said, "I dreamed about... a lifetime with you."

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June 9th, Sunny

Graduated.

Luo Ke gave me a bouquet of fresh gardenia flowers. Although all my classmates in the class received them, this is the first time I have received flowers. Gardenia flowers smell really nice. Thank you, Luo Ke. I really like them, and I will continue to like them.

Shen Baoshan, will I never have the chance to see you again?

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June 9th, Sunny

Summer begins, and I and Shen Baoshan are officially together.

End of the main story.

Self-love can only last forever. Hoping that everyone can become their own Shen Baoshan.

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Translator's Corner: And that's the end of the main story. I will post the 2 extras published on Changpei and 1 short extra from author's weibo. Thanks for reading!

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